


Big Ghost Machines

by cellardweller



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Memory Alteration, Sort Of, Swearing, Trust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 07:12:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11984811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cellardweller/pseuds/cellardweller
Summary: No past, hard present, worse future. But at least they have each other.[on, as the kids say, Big Hiatus]





	Big Ghost Machines

**Author's Note:**

> Reyes and Morrison as Apollo and Midnighter basically. That's it. 
> 
> They LOVE each other, damn it.

Subjects 76 and 24 are perfect for each other.

They think so occasionally, especially when they’re strapped to their tables, heads held fast in one painful position for hours with only each other to stare into. They see enough in each other to keep at bay the worst of the pain. It’s grounding and comforting, in the only way two people in the exact same shitty situation can be.

What’s often failed to mention is how much love can come into existence wordlessly.

They had time for words, before. In the beginning, when the program started halfway normal and remained that way just long enough for them to lower their guard. They attended meals together, trained together, and eventually did everything as a pair – including suffer. But now they don’t have that kind of luxury – they’re muzzled or separated, sometimes they’re simply so stricken that when they’re allowed each others company they have no will to verbalize anything. It doesn’t stop them.

76, while he hasn’t brought it up for verification, estimates that he fell first. He’s big enough to admit that.

In the beginning, the Soldier Enhancement Program was simply that, for them and the other 198 men and women recruited. 76 struggled the most with the treatments themselves, twisting him up or carving him out, dropping him below freezing or inducing a fever so strong he hallucinated dead friends. He knows he’ll be afraid of needles for the rest of his life. The means are supposed to justify the ends – the ends being: turning them all into goddamn superheroes, so he just learned to deal.

24 is more emotional, always will be. But he hides the pain from those drugs like a cat, moving off to a dark corner to suffer alone except- except when 76 has also been worked on.

One night, about six months in, 76 stumbled into their shared room and collapsed on the floor, shaking so hard the world shook with him. Taking stock of his own body helped nothing – it was like it was betraying him. He was on fire and full of ice at the same time. The treatments were never so bad before; now they’re killing him.

Hands came down and wrapped his face in soothing comfort, gentle and warm. “Shit, you’re cold as ice, Jack.” He was rolled onto his back and 24 looked into his eyes curiously. “You’re not having a seizure, right?”

Teeth chattering, he smiled. “Dunno,” he said.

Arms wrapped around his chest and helped him up onto one of the beds. He couldn’t tell which one was closest, but feels rough wool under his fingers – a quilt. Gabriel’s, then. 24 did all the work: checked his injection sites, pulled his shoes off and tucked them under the bed, yanked the blanket out from under 76 and wrapped him in it. “Be back,” he said, and left.

76 lied down and waited to die, almost as devastated by the fact that he’s going to die alone as he is the fact that he’s going to die alone in one of Gabe’s sweatshirts. Not that he was trying to keep it secret anymore, but everyone knows he damn well didn’t go to UCLA.

When 24 returned, he held a cup and some metal thing, with another blanket slung over his shoulder.

“Drink this,” 24 said, shoving the cup at him. 76 took it and he watched him set the metal thing down and plug it in, and he was awash in radiant heat after a few minutes while 24 rummaged in his closet.

“What the hell,” 76 said, barely a hoarse whisper.

“Space heater. I stole it from Yolanda,” 24 said. The extra blanket was fanned out over 76. “Drink that!”

24 climbed into bed behind him, burrowing under the blankets until they’re flush together. 76 downed the cup of- whiskey? Whiskey and something- as 24 put his arms around him. One hand came to rest on his stomach, the other went straight for his hair. 76 sighed and stared at the space heater. He still trembled, but it started to abate.

“Gabe, it’s August.”

“Mmhm.” The hand in his hair moved, smoothing his cowlick back and running nails over his scalp. “You’re really, really fuckin’ cold, though.”

76 turned around to 24’s surprised expression. The latter realized the former’s aversion to being face-to-face early on, knew it made him feel claustrophobic, but if he had any complaints he sure as hell wasn’t about to voice them now. “Didn’t you get your rounds today too?”

“Earlier,” 24 said with an easy smile. His hands ran up and down 76’s sides, over his hip and down his spine. He has this tactile obsession, calmed when he can feel that something’s still whole. “I feel fine.” 76 couldn’t even tell if he’s lying, exhausted as he was. The world still shook, and 24 saw his irritated, bewildered look around the room and slid his other hand around the back of his neck, pushing his fingertips into the knots of sore muscle there until 76 started to fall asleep.

It was still impossible to say out loud, despite stealing and wearing the man’s sweatshirt on numerous occasions. Six months doesn’t seem like long, but it’s worth more when you suffer. Considering the enthusiastic openness that Gabriel shared with him so quickly – exclusively, it seems – he stopped being so afraid to entertain the idea that it was reciprocated. He fell asleep with it on his tongue, but he loves him, he loves him, he loves him.

 

24 is a pretty damn good judge of things. He knows when 76 is in a shittier mood than he lets on, knows when his knee starts to act up, knows when he’s trying to be brave when the man has no expression control whatsoever. He can see everything clear as day, up to and including the moment 76 fell for him and he knew he wasn’t far behind at all.

They’re pressed together for the first time since they’ve decided to start acting like anxious and lovesick teenagers around each other, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Jack had finally gone to sleep and stopped shaking so much or if he wasn’t so tired, or if it wasn’t so hot- 24 realized his panting breaths and thumping heart filled the silence in the room and he panicked. It’s hot.

Carefully, so carefully, he pulled his arms free from 76 and wriggled out of the bed. Heat radiated off of his skin like a hot stove, waves of boiling points traveled down his body, hitting his stomach as soon as he reached the bathroom. All he threw up was water, and then he remembered he hadn’t eaten in two days. The drugs made everything seem rotten, he couldn’t even muster the energy to be hungry.

24 moved to the shower and turned it as far into cold as it would go, sitting on the ceramic floor fully-clothed and letting the water run over him. Steam came off of him and he stared into his hands. He couldn’t breathe, he shook and writhed and he was absolutely going to melt. _Fell asleep in a cold shower with his clothes on, died like an idiot from hypothermia._ Fuck, he couldn’t move if he tried.

“Gabe?” said a voice from the door.

76 leaned against the frame like a ghost, pale and worried. His glare shot an arrow into his heart through the cloud of steam. 24 tried to get a hand underneath himself. “Jack-”

He came over and turned the faucet off. “You’re not fine,” he said. He still shook, chattering like a novelty skeleton, as though he had any damn right to get angry with him. Then he paused, his entire expression softening, and looked over 24. “I’ve got a great idea,” he said.

Carefully, he peeled the wet clothes off of 24 and hung them over the shower rod, obviously using the wall for support. 24 could do nothing but watch him struggle for his own sake, hoping the intensity of his glaring would drive him away out of spite. As soon as 76 noticed, he smiled and pushed the wet hair back from 24’s eyes with a shaking hand, and 24 could do nothing but sag against the corner of the tub, defeated.

He knew 76 had already fallen for him, but he knew in that moment he was also completely fucked.

“Come on, I feel better already,” 76 said, pulling one of 24’s arms over his shoulders and helping him stand.

“Bullshit,” 24 said, twisting away from the cold contact of 76’s skin. “You’re still freezing.”

“Yeah, but it’s not so bad now,” he said, reaching his hand over to entwine it with 24’s. “Thanks to you.”

They eventually stumbled back through the door to their room and 76 propped him up against the closed door. 24 leaned his head back and tried to breathe. Fire soaked his bones and cooked the inside of him. The air in his lungs felt like a humid summer. The fact that the heater was on for hours helped nothing, the ambient heat swallowing him up until he slid down to the floor, grabbing the edge of a small bookcase to steady himself with and bringing it down with him. “Leave it,” he heard from 76. “Are you okay?”

24 nodded. “I’m dying, but yeah.” He opened his eyes and watched 76 dismantle their beds, taking all the linens and pillows off and arranging them on the floor. Slowly, 24 reached up and locked the door behind him. 76 grabbed the hem of his – his? – sweatshirt and pulled it off. “Was that my sweatshirt?” he asked.

With a smirk, 76 tossed it. “Was.” As soon as the air touched his bare skin he buckled, curling in on himself. “Get in here with me.” He reached over and grabbed 24’s hand, and that was motivation enough to get him to his knees and crawl to their makeshift nest.

As soon as they’re skin to skin, limbs entangled in every cardinal direction, 24 got it. The unbelievable chill of 76’s skin started to melt him down to an ember, and he pulled him closer. 76 burrowed under him and the blankets until his shaking subsided, then buried his face in the crook of his neck and sighed. Between the two of them, their temperatures evened out after an hour or so and 24 laughed. “This is a little on-the-nose, right?”

76 snorted. “Whatever works.”

“Well, between this fuckin’ romantic phenomenon and the fact that you’ve apparently stolen my sweatshirt, I’m ready to introduce you to my parents.”

“Please shut up and go to sleep.” A pause. “Did you even go to UCLA?”

“Right, when exactly would I have had the time to do that? Between basic and this nightmare?”

“Then why do you have it?”

“My sister gave it to me, for good luck.”

“Oh.” He turned his head and shifted, somehow finding more empty space between them to obliterate. 24 felt his pulse quicken. “Do you want it back?”

“Nope.”

 

76 wakes up cautiously, knowing as soon as the universe gives you something nice, it has to give you something cruel to keep things even.

He’s got a grand view from the floor as they pack 24 back into the big fishtank they’ve kept him in for three weeks now. Some kind of stasis chamber, he knows that much. At least it looks comfortable, at least 24 is asleep. Ignoring the fact that he has not been able to and cannot speak to him, he smiles and pushes himself up. If he tries hard enough, maybe today will be the day Gabriel wakes up.

There’s a new shadow looming over him now.

“Why are you on the floor, Subject 76?” a soft, chiding voice asks him.

He looks over his shoulder at the bed close behind and shrugs. “Guess I fell out.”

“Hmm,” the doctor hums. A few moments of silence passes, wherein the doctor paces outside of his cell, thinking. “Do you have any idea why I’m here?” He crosses his arms, confident and loving the fact that they’re separated by a thick glass wall. 76 can never remember what happens outside of his room.

 _How the fuck should I know?_ “Are you finally ready to let me out of this box?”

The doctor ignores him, turns, and points to Gabriel in his little prison. “I want you to look at that, really look at it. I put him directly in your line of sight for a reason, 76.” He takes a few steps over and puts his hands against the glass reverently, runs his fingers through the sheet on condensation that’s formed on the surface. A bright spark of possessiveness erupts in 76’s chest. “So you can see what we’re doing, how I’m changing twenty-four at his basest level.”

76 folds his arms underneath his head and gazes at 24 through the glass. Looks the same. He groans and buries his head, his restless life rushing up to batter him all at once.

There’s a tap on the glass. “Mister Morrison, you were not chosen for this program as punishment for your poor attitude. You, and Mister Reyes, were both chosen because you are among the best, and only the best become gods.”

76 raises his head again and glares at the doctor. “Gods.”

“Oh, yes, 76.” He turns a kind eye on the man. “I’ll let you in on a little secret: we’re nearing the end of this program. And as you and the rest of my monitoring staff have elected to remind me again and again and-” he heaves, exasperated, “-again, you and 24 are perfect for each other, a flawless team. You two will be together again soon, I assure you, and you will be amazing.”

**Author's Note:**

> THANK you for reading. Please leave a comment if you want because I need them to survive. 
> 
> More to come!


End file.
